🚀 go-pugleaf

> In <1993Jan21.110438.1@fnalf.fnal.gov> higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
> 
> On the other hand, remember that Forbidden Planet, in the 1950's,
> began with the narrator's voice saying, "In the last decade of the
> 21st Century, Mankind reached the Moon."  Rober Heinlein was a bit

Well, considering the current public and governmental attitude to expensive
new space programs plus what is going worldwide with the space agencies,
the _Forbidden Planet_ writers were not really off of the mark.
I do not believe that Bill or I will reach the Moon in the next century
(except for some really good breakthroughs in longevity and geriatrics) and
sure that Bill and I carry a good quantity of Mankind around 8-)!
When I was a teenager I expected to visit the moons of Saturn or at least
Mars at my retirement age. Now my expectancies are with an orbital week-end
draining my savings account for the same period. The bonus side is that I
could possibly be one of the first guys in building a ICF pulse rocket,
but I would trade it for my Saturn's moon trip!

I fell like Mankind will not reach the Moon and the planets in a really
effective way till the end of the next century. The beginning of the next
century will be for PC technologies, 'ecologic'-cleansing, and New-Age
illiterates trying to subvert science and technology to their own pervert
agenda.

Sorry about this tirade. It is the result of reading three times 'Fallen
Angels' and seeing around what is going on with S&T policy.
(Next tirade: _How the U.N./Green technological police forced me to leave
Physics and go back to administer my family's convinience store_)

Andres C. Gaeris
A junior laser fusioneer goin' older and cynic but not wiser.
agae@lle.rochester.edu